“Konrad Becker, meet Oskar Lange.”
The banker sat motionless for a long moment, as though he had been suddenly bronzed. Then his clever little eyes settled on Shamron, and he raised his hands in an inquiring gesture.
“What am I supposed to do with him?”
“You tell us. He’s very good, our Oskar.”
“Can he impersonate a lawyer?”
“With the right preparation, he could impersonate your mother.”
“How long does this charade have to last?”
“Five minutes, maybe less.”
“When you’re with Ludwig Vogel, five minutes can seem like an eternity.”
“So I’ve heard,” Shamron said.
“What about Klaus?”
“Klaus?”
“Vogel’s bodyguard.”
Shamron smiled. Resistance had ended. The Swiss banker had joined the team. He now swore allegiance to the flag of Herr Heller and his noble endeavor.
“He’s very professional,” Becker said. “I’ve been to the house a half-dozen times, but he always gives me a thorough search and asks me to open my briefcase. So, if you’re thinking about trying to get a weapon into the house-”
Shamron cut him off. “We have no intention of bringing weapons in the house.”
“Klaus is always armed.”
“You’re sure?”
“A Glock, I’d say.” The banker patted the left side of his chest. “Wears it right there. Doesn’t make much of an effort to hide it.”
“A lovely piece of detail, Herr Becker.”
The banker accepted the compliment with a tilt of his head-Details are my business, Herr Heller.
“Forgive my insolence, Herr Heller, but how does one actually kidnap someone who’s protected by a bodyguard if the bodyguard is armed and the kidnapper isn’t?”
“Herr Vogel is going to leave his house voluntarily.”
“A voluntary kidnapping?” Becker’s tone was incredulous. “How unique. And how does one convince a man to allow himself to be kidnappedvoluntarily?”
Shamron folded his arms. “Just get Oskar inside the house and leave the rest to us.”
32 MUNICH
IT WAS AN OLDapartment house in the pretty little Munich district of Lehel, with a gate on the street and the main entrance off a tidy courtyard. The lift was fickle and indecisive, and more often than not, they simply climbed the spiral staircase to the third floor. The furnishings had a hotel room anonymity. There were two beds in the bedroom, and the sitting room couch was a davenport. In the storage closet were four extra cots. The pantry was stocked with nonperishable goods, and the cabinets contained place settings for eight. The sitting-room windows overlooked the street, but the blackout shades remained drawn at all times, so that inside the flat it seemed a perpetual evening. The telephones had no ringers. Instead, they were fitted with red lights that flashed to indicate incoming calls.
The walls of the sitting room were hung with maps: central Vienna, metropolitan Vienna, eastern Austria, Poland. On the wall opposite the windows hung a very large map of central Europe, which showed the entire escape route, stretching from Vienna to the Baltic coast. Shamron and Gabriel had quarreled briefly over the color before settling on red. From a distance it seemed a river of blood, which is precisely how Shamron wanted it to appear, the river of blood that had flowed through the hands of Erich Radek.
They spoke only German in the flat. Shamron had decreed it. Radek was referred to as Radek and only Radek; Shamron would not call him by the name he’d bought from the Americans. Shamron laid down other edicts as well. It was Gabriel’s operation, and therefore it was Gabriel’s show to run. It was Gabriel, in the Berlin accent of his mother, who briefed the teams, Gabriel who reviewed the watch reports from Vienna, and Gabriel who made all final operational decisions.
For the first few days, Shamron struggled to fit into his supporting role, but as his confidence in Gabriel grew, he found it easier to slide into the background. Still, every agent who passed through the safe flat took note of the dark pall that had settled over him. He seemed never to sleep. He would stand before the maps at all hours, or sit at the kitchen table in the dark, chain-smoking like a man wrestling with a guilty conscience. “He’s like a terminal patient who’s planning his own funeral,” remarked Oded, a veteran German-speaking agent whom Gabriel had chosen to drive the escape car. “And if it goes to hell, they’ll chisel it on his tombstone, right below the Star of David.”
Under perfect circumstances, such an operation would involve weeks of planning. Gabriel had only days. The Wrath of God operation had prepared him well. The terrorists of Black September had been constantly on the move, appearing and disappearing with maddening frequency. When one was located and positively identified, the hit team would swing into action at light speed. Surveillance teams would swoop into place, vehicles and safe flats would be rented, escape routes would be planned. That reservoir of experience and knowledge served Gabriel well in Munich. Few intelligence officers knew more about rapid planning and quick strikes than he and Shamron.
In the evenings, they watched the news on German television. The election in neighboring Austria had captured the attention of German viewers. Metzler was rolling forward. The crowds at his campaign stops, like his lead in the polls, grew larger by the day. Austria, it seemed, was on the verge of doing the unthinkable, electing a chancellor from the far right. Inside the Munich safe flat, Gabriel and his team found themselves in the odd position of cheering Metzler’s ascent in the polls, for without Metzler, their doorway to Radek would close.
Invariably, soon after the news ended, Lev would check in from King Saul Boulevard and subject Gabriel to a tedious cross-examination of the day’s events. It was the one time Shamron was relieved not to bear the burden of operational command. Gabriel would pace the floor with a phone against his ear, patiently answering each of Lev’s questions. And sometimes, if the light was right, Shamron would see Gabriel’s mother, pacing beside him. She was the one member of the team that no one ever mentioned.
ONCE EACH DAY, usually in late afternoon, Gabriel and Shamron escaped the safe flat to walk in the English Gardens. Eichmann’s shadow hung over them. Gabriel reckoned he had been there from the beginning. He had come that night in Vienna, when Max Klein had told Gabriel the story of the SS officer who had murdered a dozen prisoners at Birkenau and now enjoyed coffee every afternoon at the Café Central. Still, Shamron had diligently avoided even speaking his name, until now.
Gabriel had heard the story of Eichmann’s capture many times before. Indeed, Shamron had used it in September 1972 to prod Gabriel into joining the Wrath of God team. The version Shamron told during those walks along the tree-lined footpaths of the English Gardens was more detailed than any Gabriel had heard before. Gabriel knew these were not merely the ramblings of an old man trying to relive past glories. Shamron was never one to trumpet his own successes, and the publishers would wait in vain for his memoirs. Gabriel knew Shamron was telling him about Eichmann for a reason.I’ve taken the journey you’re about to make, Shamron was saying.In another time, in another place, in the company of another man, but there are things you should know. Gabriel, at times, could not shake the sense that he was walking with history.
“Waiting for the escape plane was the hardest part. We were trapped in the safe house with this rat of a man. Some of the team couldn’t bear to look at him. I had to sit in his room night after night and keep watch over him. He was chained to the iron bed, dressed in pajamas with opaque goggles over his eyes. We were strictly forbidden to engage him in conversation. Only the interrogator was allowed to speak to him. I couldn’t obey those orders. You see, I had to know. How had this man who was sickened by the sight of blood killed six million of my people? My mother and father? My two sisters? I asked him why he had done it. And do you know what he said? He told me he did it because it was his job-his job, Gabriel-as if he were nothing more than a bank clerk or a railroad conductor.”